The Anti Narcotics Cell of the Navi Mumbai police have arrested Pramod Das alias Kalu (35), the main accused in a gutkha racket, from the Mumbai airport as he was trying to flee to Bhubaneshwar.
“Kalu ordered the stock from Gujarat and supplied it in Mumbai,” senior police inspector Ravindra Budhwant said.
On October 9, four people were arrested — Jitendra Karthikchandra Das (26), Priyavrat Abhaykumar Das (29), Munna Shrijanardhan Yadav (28) and Akheya Budhadev Khonda (22) — with gutkha worth ₹35.53 lakh from Rabale MIDC.
The next day, Mumtaz Ahmad Nafis Ahmad Shah (33), who runs a paan shop at Khairane, was arrested and gutkha worth ₹5.3 lakh was seized. On October 13, Lakshminarayan Budhan Jha (35) was arrested from Vichumbe in Panvel and gutkha worth ₹4.2 lakh was seized.
The police traced Kalu when he switched on his mobile to access his ticket at the airport on October 17 and nabbed him.
